Fringe: Unknown unknowns

Even though they are still fugitives and Olivia Jr.’s apartment would be crawling with Observers after her death looking for them because, UH DUH, Pacey and Olivia are just cold hanging out in their daughter’s place, looking around, taking naps, no worries. Which, no. No! I reject this. There is no way Olivia Jr.’s apartment would not be under constant surveillance, especially since the Observers are supposed to be super-logical and, you know, observant. But not only are they not immediately detained by the Observers at Olivia Jr.’s apartment, they poke around in her stuff and take a bunch of momentos, too. Weapons and photographs and perfume and junk.

While they are there trying to get themselves arrested, AsteriskAstrid calls to exposit that they won’t be chasing after some video clue, as she was unable to cut the next tape out of the amber because, plot. That Rebel Guy also calls the group on Olivia Jr.’s phone and tells Olivia that he needs to meet with them ASAP. So they finally leave Olivia Jr.’s apartment and are not immediately arrested by the Observers. Somehow.

But maybe the Observers are too busy driving around in their big military trucks, starting static electricity storms in the middle of the street, opening up some sort of universe portals in the middle of the intersection and directing giant cargo containers through them. Which, to be fair, seems like a lot to manage while also worrying over a dead girl’s apartment.

The Fringies meet That Rebel Guy at the spot where the Observers opened the giant portal, which is readily identifiable by the giant char mark left behind. That Rebel Guy explains that the Observers opened up a shipping lane through which they sent over parts for their future air-pollution machines, which is just a thing that he knows somehow. The rebels’ plan is to destroy the next shipment when it comes in, and they might be able to figure out when and where that will be, if they only spoke Observer. Seems the rebels caught themselves an Observer in this same area the day before, and his bonus accessories included (aside from a fedora) a notebook filled with illegible Observer squiggles and some sort of cube device thingy.

At news of the captured Observer, Pacey’s eyes begin flashing “REVENGE REVENGE REVENGE,” and he asks to see the cube for himself. If it is what the Observers used to open the shipping intertime portal, it must be a really powerful energy source, and perhaps with a little bit of tinkering, they may be able to make it destroy all of the intertime portals, always? Somehow? DON’T WORRY ABOUT DETAILS. Just take some samples and bring Pacey the cube and DON’T LECTURE HIM ABOUT REVENGE AND DIGGING TWO GRAVES, THAT REBEL GUY, PACEY DOESN’T KNOW YOU AND HE DOESN’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.

Back at the Harvard lab … And, yes, I know they made to look as though it was abandoned that one time, but wouldn’t it behoove the Observers to continue keeping an eye on it, just in case the Fringies decided to come back? BUT I DIGRESS (WITH LOGIC). Back at the Harvard lab, Pacey fiddles with the cube and AsteriskAstrid attempts to decrypt the notebook. Neither are particularly successful. AsteriskAstrid comes to the realization that she is going to need considerably more computer power to run through all of the code possibilities. And Bishop comes up with an ingenious plan to turn the shipping portal into a black hole using the cube + antimatter batons — if they can figure out how to turn the cube on. To that end, Pacey wants to torture question the captured Observer himself. And Olivia and Bishop have a worried because Pacey’s eyes are still flashing “REVENGE REVENGE REVENGE,” and that never comes to a good end.

Pacey is let into a warehouse by The Other Rebel Guy and shown the captured, napping Observer. The Other Rebel Guy explains that they use a sort of antifreeze to keep the Observer’s powers under control, adding that most of the Observer’s powers are aided by technology, noting a lump of something in the back of the Observer’s neck. Rise and shine, baldy! The Other Rebel Guy introduces the Observer to Pacey and explains that Pacey is here to ask him a few questions about the cube. The Observer assures Pacey that Pacey has no use for the cube, and Pacey’s like, “Go on and read me, I don’t care, because you’re not leaving here. Oh, and I can totally tell you’re scared.” The Observer responds that Pacey doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know, which, WHATEVER, SOCRATES.

So, Pacey has rigged up a monitor close to the Observer’s eyeball so he can better monitor the Observer’s pupil and how it dilates or contracts in relation to what Pacey does with the cube. As Pacey moves the cube’s pieces around and they click into place, The Observer is all, SO WHAT, WHO CARES, YOU’RE JUST A STUPID ANT. When Pacey slides in another piece, and the universe doesn’t collapse upon itself, Pacey is like, YOU MAD?

Back at the Harvard Lab, Olivia is busy having a sad with Olivia Jr’s bullet necklace when Bishop shows up with a videotape of Olivia Jr’s fourth birthday party for Olivia to watch BECAUSE SHE ISN’T SAD ENOUGH. COME ON, BISHOP. Bishop explains that he knows Olivia is worried that she and Pacey will split up again now that Olivia Jr. is gone, but maybe if the two of them sit together and watch this tape, they’ll realize that her life mattered, and they can deal with her loss together. Olivia is like, YEAH, THAT DOES NOT SOUND COOL. And then AsteriskAstrid interrupts to let them know that she and all of the computers have cracked the notebook code, somehow, and the next intertime shipment is supposed to arrive in a few hours. Alert!

Meanwhile, Pacey is still tinkering with the final piece of the cube, which can be inserted in 4 possible ways. So he waves it around for a while as he watches the Observer’s pupil, all the while the Observer is all, Whatever, I don’t even care if I die, no big deal. Despite the Observer’s protests, Pacey determines that one particular way to insert the piece is, in fact, the correct one. He snaps it into place, and gets a green light from the cube, which we all assume is a good sign. With that, Pacey heads out to meet Olivia and the rebels at the next shipping location.

And then there’s a confusing scene wherein the rebels and the Observers each place their cubes kinda near each other but before Pacey can shoot the antimatter batons into the intertime shipping portal, Observers pop up near him and start kicking him and Olivia around. Fight fight shoot fight, and Pacey is able to shoot the antimatter baton into the portal. Hooray! Except as he and Olivia flee into the rebels’ hippie van, they realize that nothing happened? And they all have a “baroo?” as the Observers just kinda shrug and open up a new portal. And long, confusing story short: their whole plan, it didn’t work. But Olivia does find some cool posters of Olivia Jr. plastered all over an alleyway with the word “RESIST,” so there’s that.

http://www.fringefiles.com/

Pacey is NOT HAPPY with the Observer, and he marches back in the warehouse and immediately begins suffocating him with some plastic. Yikes! Moments before the Observer would die, Pacey pulls the plastic away and demands to know why the cube didn’t work. The Observer goes into a long explanation about how he fooled Pacey’s little pupil dilation trick by staring at a fly or something, the bottom line is: Pacey’s emotions clouded his perception of reality and his daughter’s death was irrelevant. Pacey pistol whips the Observer, and insists that if he were to kill the Observer right now, no one would miss him. The Observer’s just a bunch of knobs and switches, and if Pacey had that tech in his head, he’d be ten times what the Observer is.

Meanwhile, Olivia watches the birthday party video because she’s a masochist.

Pacey, fully off the rails, cuts the back of the Observer’s neck open, removes the implant and informs the Observer as he dies that what he is feeling is the pain a father feels upon losing a child. And then Pacey slices the back of his own neck open, and inserts the implant, which NO SIR. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT KIND OF GERMS THAT OBSERVER WAS CARRYING IN HIS NECK, GROSS. ALSO, OUCH. Olivia calls right then, begging Pacey to come home, she doesn’t want to lose him. WHAT’S UP, FORESHADOWING? HOW YOU DOING?

SORRY SORRY SORRY I KNOW SO LATE ACK. I don’t even have an excuse. Holidays? Catching up with reality nonsense? All of the above? Sure. But I honestly did have time to play catch up, and I didn’t, and in part it was because this episode left me … empty. Yes, I know that it is an important plot point moving forward, this idea that Pacey becomes as bad as those he is fighting, but I was unhappy that they felt the need to pause Bishop’s treasure hunt to get there. This is nit-picking, sure, but it seems like they could have written a story wherein an Observer is caught and detained in the process of following one of Bishop’s clues, and the momentum of that particular storyline wouldn’t have to come to a grinding halt. Additionally, I found the whole torture/revenge/becoming what you detest storyline to be a little clichéd and heavy-handed. I will note that it is certainly within Pacey’s character to treat an Observer as something other than human: he became a serial killer of the T-1000s after all with very little moral quibbling from either the other characters or the writers. But that said, hasn’t this been done before? And not just within the Fringe universe, but in storytelling as a whole? We get it: vengeance is bad, grief makes you do unforgivable things, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. BEEN THERE, DONE ALL OF THAT. MANY TIMES.

Anyway. I’m just going to go ahead and cut this short and not delve into symbolism, etc. in this particular episode because: 1. there wasn’t much to begin with and 2. I’ve still got two more episodes to get to, and time is quickly getting away from me. Here’s to hoping I’m less cranky about the next episode. (Spoiler alert: I am less cranky about the next episode.)